Buyology author Martin Lindstrom says its time to rethink the 50-year-old formula of commercials showing perfect brands in perfect environments. "Nothing is ever perfect, and even when it appears to be so, we are subconsciously looking for the flaw," he writes. Lindstrom offers an anecdote to illustrate. A European cosmetics brand forced by the economy to cut the length of its traditional 90-second commercials used a neuro-scientific tool based on EEGs to analyze which scenes viewers found the most emotionally engaging. The most powerful scene turned out to be one that all the senior …

Wealthy shoppers seem to be increasingly willing to part with their dollars, Euros and Saudi riyals, Elizabeth Holmes and Rachel Dodes report, but executives attending the semiannual New York Fashion Week are trying hard to drum up a renewed sense of aspirational longing among the wanna-look-rich folk who really make the registers sing. Shoppers with assets upwards of $5 million are back in the game, according to A.T. Kearney partner Hana Ben-Shabat, and the $1- million-and-up crowd is stirring, too. But still-tight credit is hampering the consumers who drove the luxury boom before the recession hit. Saks …

The recession and digital media have returned power to the consumer, Jaclyn Trop reports, and with the Web as their megaphone, more consumers than ever have become activists looking for public retribution for perceived slights. "Customers want to be heard," Marilyn Suttle, co-author of Who's Your Gladys?: How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan, says. "In many cases, "if you don't make eye contact, they're out of there. It's become, you better make me feel important or I will leave." Trop strings together some anecdotes and interviews with consumers that confirms the …

The number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company has dropped from 45% to 25% since 2008, according to Edelman's Trust Barometer survey. It's a result that "strikes at the foundation of many a social-media marketing philosophy," Michael Bush writes. "The events of the last 18 months have scarred people ...," says Edelman president and CEO Richard Edelman. "It's a more-skeptical time." It's not that social media doesn't have its place in the marketing quiver, Edelman says, but it's important to realize that it's just one arrow. …

Mike Hughlett takes a look at Irene Rosenfeld's intense efforts to woo Cadbury and Kraft employees. "Understandably, there's a great deal of uncertainty right now," she acknowledges in a global webcast. She then says she saw something similar when she worked at General Foods when Phillip Morris took it over in 1985. "I'll never forget when they replaced the apples in the vending machine with cigarettes," Rosenfeld recalls. She promises to have a good sense of what the merged company will look like by 90 days. She also says Kraft will cull from the "best of …

Maybe you've seen this: Click on the bald-pated, bobble-headed facsimile of Seth Godin and get a bromide such as "the devil doesn't need an advocate." Reads the subhed: "He has big ideas so you don't have to." Helen Waters brings it to our attention ("makes me laugh every time") in a blog post about Godin's appearance last week at a $195-a-ticket event last week where he pitched his new book, Linchpin, which is what you are within, evidently, even if you haven't come to terms with it yet. Godin was at the top of …